Nutri-Food Startup InnerBeing Raises ₹3.5 Crore from Singapore's CCube Angels Network

CCube AngelsNetwork, Singapore based angel investing network has invested in Inner Being Wellness Pvt.Ltd (hereinafter referred to as InnerBeing),a Nutri-food start up based out of Hyderabad. The start-up has received INR 35 million (SG $6,90,131) from partners, Atim Kabra, Vipin Agarwal and Sandesh Pandhare and few others.

Inner Being plans to use the funds raised in the current round for new product development, expansion in top tier cities in India and few other countries, marketing activities and aims to build India’s trusted healthy lifestyle brand in the breakfast and snacks space. The recent round comprises of some prominent investors from USA, UAE, Singapore & India, including an ex-board member of ITC Group.

C S Jadhav, Director, InnerBeing elaborated the vision of the company is to promote a healthy lifestyle among consumers by providing nutritious food optionswhich are tastier than currently available unhealthy and junk food options.Inner Being is introducing traditional foods like millets, quinoaand other ancient grains in more contemporary formatsthat appeal to the modern generation such as breakfast mixes, snack mixes, savory snacks, crackers, cookies, energy bars and the like.

Atim Kabra, Director, Frontline Strategy which manages CCube Angels Network, said “we have a strong belief that Nutricereals will be the next smart food and specially millet, being a dry land crop, will improve livelihoods at the rural level and at the same time offer nutritious products to the urban consumers. We believe that there is a big market for the company’s products in India & beyond.”

Inner Being’s key competencies have been innovation of the “health-enriched” food developed through its R&D where the focus is on launching Nutri-foods that are rich in plant protein, rich in dietary fibre, gluten-free, low in glycaemic index (GI), natural and pesticide free.

Inner Being is the first company to be incubated by a-IDEA, a Technology Business Incubator(TBI) hosted by ICAR-National Academy of Agricultural Research Management, Hyderabad (ICAR-NAARM) & Department of Science & Technology, Govt. of India (DST, GOI), and it also received the initial seed funding under the start up initiative. The company has technical tie-up with Indian Institute of Millet Research, Hyderabad (IIMR) for developing value added products in the Nutricereals Innovation Centre.

The company has successfully launched several millet based products like Jowar Idli, Jowar Upma, Ragi Malt, Jowar Flakes, Millet Cookies in Hyderabad and is now expanding to Delhi and Mumbai this year, and aims to expand to 10 cities in couple of years. The company willshortly introduce a range of new mixes such as Quinoa Porridge, Millet & Nut Cake, Gluten-free Pizza, Millet Pancake which will cater to health-conscious consumers.

Last year in May, Hyderabad-based Health Sutra raised undisclosed amount from Ankur Capital and Hyderabad Angels. HealthSutra is also an emerging brand focused on the nutritious food segment with millet based products.

In September of same year, healthy food restaurant chain, Sattviko raised an undisclosed amount of funding from existing investor Nasscom chairman Raman Roy along with a group of investors.

Nutri-Food Startup InnerBeing Raises ₹3.5 Crore from Singapore's CCube Angels Network

CCube AngelsNetwork, Singapore based angel investing network has invested in Inner Being Wellness Pvt.Ltd (hereinafter referred to as InnerBeing),a Nutri-food start up based out of Hyderabad. The start-up has received INR 35 million (SG $6,90,131) from partners, Atim Kabra, Vipin Agarwal and Sandesh Pandhare and few others.

Inner Being plans to use the funds raised in the current round for new product development, expansion in top tier cities in India and few other countries, marketing activities and aims to build India’s trusted healthy lifestyle brand in the breakfast and snacks space. The recent round comprises of some prominent investors from USA, UAE, Singapore & India, including an ex-board member of ITC Group.

C S Jadhav, Director, InnerBeing elaborated the vision of the company is to promote a healthy lifestyle among consumers by providing nutritious food optionswhich are tastier than currently available unhealthy and junk food options.Inner Being is introducing traditional foods like millets, quinoaand other ancient grains in more contemporary formatsthat appeal to the modern generation such as breakfast mixes, snack mixes, savory snacks, crackers, cookies, energy bars and the like.

Atim Kabra, Director, Frontline Strategy which manages CCube Angels Network, said “we have a strong belief that Nutricereals will be the next smart food and specially millet, being a dry land crop, will improve livelihoods at the rural level and at the same time offer nutritious products to the urban consumers. We believe that there is a big market for the company’s products in India & beyond.”

Inner Being’s key competencies have been innovation of the “health-enriched” food developed through its R&D where the focus is on launching Nutri-foods that are rich in plant protein, rich in dietary fibre, gluten-free, low in glycaemic index (GI), natural and pesticide free.

Inner Being is the first company to be incubated by a-IDEA, a Technology Business Incubator(TBI) hosted by ICAR-National Academy of Agricultural Research Management, Hyderabad (ICAR-NAARM) & Department of Science & Technology, Govt. of India (DST, GOI), and it also received the initial seed funding under the start up initiative. The company has technical tie-up with Indian Institute of Millet Research, Hyderabad (IIMR) for developing value added products in the Nutricereals Innovation Centre.

The company has successfully launched several millet based products like Jowar Idli, Jowar Upma, Ragi Malt, Jowar Flakes, Millet Cookies in Hyderabad and is now expanding to Delhi and Mumbai this year, and aims to expand to 10 cities in couple of years. The company willshortly introduce a range of new mixes such as Quinoa Porridge, Millet & Nut Cake, Gluten-free Pizza, Millet Pancake which will cater to health-conscious consumers.

Last year in May, Hyderabad-based Health Sutra raised undisclosed amount from Ankur Capital and Hyderabad Angels. HealthSutra is also an emerging brand focused on the nutritious food segment with millet based products.

In September of same year, healthy food restaurant chain, Sattviko raised an undisclosed amount of funding from existing investor Nasscom chairman Raman Roy along with a group of investors.

Technology Solutions Provider iauro Systems Raises Funding from Speciale Invest

iauro Systems Pvt Ltd, a leading scalable technology solutions provider aspiring to partner with brands in their digital transformation, announced, today, that it has raised a round of financing from venture capital firm Speciale Invest. This investment enables iauro to fuel its next phase of growth, build and explore partnerships enabling digital transformation, and to utilize the expertise and experience of the leadership team of Speciale Invest brings to the partnership. Speciale Invest’s Vishesh Rajaram will also join iauro's Board of Directors.

Speaking on the investment, Vishesh Rajaram, Managing Partner, Speciale Invest said, “Digital transformation is not a choice, but a requirement for companies to grow in today’s business environment, and we look for iauro to be large contributor, working with brands in disrupting their industries through radical digital transformation solutions.”

Founded in 2009 by Anupam Kulkarni and Nilesh Ratnaparkhi., iauro is a technology company focused on delivering scalable Mobile, Cloud and Big Data solutions. Anupam Kulkarni, Cofounder, iauro Systems, said, “Speciale Invest’s investment in iauro is a clear validation of our business model and value proposition. Over the years, we have successfully built the company to this inflection point from where we see ourselves propelling to the next level of growth. Speciale Invest’s experience and investment will help us to achieve this vision.”

Among various verticals, iauro concentrates on IoT in integrating machine-generated data with traditional and cloud databases working with clients across verticals and geographies such as BookMyShow, Bilcare, Translations, Affinity Express, OVGuide, TVS Sundaram, and Tech Mahindra to name a few. The brand looks help client partners take simple ideas and transform them into high-performance, scalable solutions. The company looks to use this strategic partnership to propel the next level of growth.

eSports Gaming Company GamingMonk Raises Funding from AdvantEdge

GamingMonk, a pioneering eSports gaming company in India has recently joined hands with AdvantEdge and raised funds to launch its subscription based eSports portal. GamingMonk started out as an E-commerce marketplace to sell consoles, gaming titles and other gaming accessories, but had pivoted last year to become India’s largest offline eSports competitive event organizer.

As an eSports company, GamingMonk has become India’s largest player having organized over 40 offline competitive tournaments across the country with over 15,000 participants. They have partnered with leading global brands such as Sony, Microsoft, HP, Amazon, Nvidia and Mountain Dew.

With the recent fund infusion from AdvantEdge, the company launched India’s first online subscription based eSports platform and is hosting regular tournaments for FIFA, CS-GO, DOTA2, Clash Royale, Rocket League, amongst others. The platform caters to the Indian online gaming industry expected to reach $1 billion by 2012 with 310 million gamers.

Speaking on the occasion, Abhay Sharma, Co-founder of GamingMonk said, “We have a customer base of over twenty thousand active gamers consisting of mostly students and young professionals. These gamers usually engage in gaming for its competitive nature and social interaction, something our offline events cater to. We have partnered with AdvantEdge to bring this same competitive spirit online and reduce the geographic barriers for the gamers and allow them to compete for cash prizes and pro points.” The company has launched the GamingMonk Championship Series and is targeting over 60,000 participants across 65 offline tournaments in six cities and 435 events online in the coming year.

Kunal Khattar, Partner at AdvantEdge said “Having established itself as the leading offline eSports brand, GamingMonk continues to lead the revolution with the launch of its ePortal, allowing millennia’s to play competitively from the comfort of their homes. The team has deep insights of the customer segment and tremendous brand recognition within the gamer community and we look forward to working with them to unlock the full potential of eSports in India.”

Moving forward, GamingMonk hints at a disruptive eSports league model currently under development, which is being built on top of the operational offline and online platforms that is already India’s largest active gaming community. The planned league has big names from bollywood, cricketers and the gaming industry looking to come on board.

When asked the future plans for GamingMonk, Ashwin Haryani the Co-Founder had this to say, “We are already getting significant inbound interest for our next round of funding and are also in discussions with some strategic players both here in India and overseas. A big announcement is expected towards the end of this year.”

The next few months will lay down a pedestal for the Indian eSports industry, redefining it from scratch as a globally recognized eSports League. And GamingMonk already has a significant head start over others and will continue to build out on the platform by continuing to be true to the gamers that constitute their core customer base.

Minio Raises $20M in Series A Funding Led by Nexus Venture, Dell Technologies Capital & General Catalyst Partners

Minio, a provider of open source object storage for cloud-native and containerized applications, today announced $20M in Series A funding jointly led by Dell Technologies Capital, General Catalyst Partners and Nexus Venture Partners, with participation by Intel Capital, AME Cloud and Steve Singh. Funding will be allocated to accelerating product development, company growth and keeping pace with rapidly growing industry demand. The company also announced today its multi-cloud object storage offering, bringing Amazon S3 compatible object APIs to all cloud-native environments.

“As enterprises consider new hybrid IT solutions like VMware on AWS to extend their on-premise virtual environments, Minio bridges the final data storage gap between on-premise and cloud hosting that otherwise severely limits the cloud opportunity,” said Mike Matchett, senior analyst and consultant at Taneja Group. “Whether Minio is running over VMware vSAN, HPE Nimble or a developer’s Mac laptop, it provides a consistent AWS S3 compatible object storage service.”

Minio enables developers to store unstructured data on any public or private cloud infrastructure. Now with support for multi-cloud, Minio is enabling users to build their own Amazon S3-compatible object storage on bare metal, public cloud or existing SAN/NAS storage infrastructure. With over 10M downloads since its general availability in January 2017, Minio’s cloud-native object storage server has been widely recognized within the cloud community.

“Emerging trends like AI, IoT and 5G will further accelerate the massive explosion of data taking place today,” said Anand Babu Periasamy, co-founder and CEO of Minio. “With such an influx, multi-cloud and standardization of the infrastructure stack is inevitable. We’re thrilled to be pushing the industry forward with support for multi-cloud, and welcome our newest investors as we continue to innovate and meet growing market demand.”

Minio’s object storage server is production ready, with major features including erasure code, bitrot protection, lambda compute and encryption. The recent developments brought tighter integration with popular public and private cloud environments based on Docker, Kubernetes, Cloud Foundry, DC/OS, Azure and Google Cloud Platform. Minio also provides metadata search, allowing users to achieve this functionality through Minio lambda functions, in conjunction with a database or a message queue. Minio will expand Search research and development significantly moving forward.

“Minio was quick to recognize the explosive growth of unstructured data and is delivering innovative solutions to address customer’s cloud-native object storage needs. The addition of multi-cloud support underscores Minio’s deep understanding of industry trends and facilitates customer-choice” said Gregg Adkin, Managing Director of Dell Technologies Capital. “We look forward to working with Minio not only from an investor perspective but also to help them utilize Dell Technologies’ extensive ecosystem to deliver cloud storage solutions to customers around the globe.”

Earlier this month, storage management firm, PrimaryIO has secured seed funding of $5.6 million from Accel, Exfinity Ventures and Partech Ventures, to expedite its product development efforts. In July, Bengaluru-based cloud computing platform Minjar raised pre-series A funding led by Blume Ventures.

Minio Raises $20M in Series A Funding Led by Nexus Venture, Dell Technologies Capital & General Catalyst Partners

Minio, a provider of open source object storage for cloud-native and containerized applications, today announced $20M in Series A funding jointly led by Dell Technologies Capital, General Catalyst Partners and Nexus Venture Partners, with participation by Intel Capital, AME Cloud and Steve Singh. Funding will be allocated to accelerating product development, company growth and keeping pace with rapidly growing industry demand. The company also announced today its multi-cloud object storage offering, bringing Amazon S3 compatible object APIs to all cloud-native environments.

“As enterprises consider new hybrid IT solutions like VMware on AWS to extend their on-premise virtual environments, Minio bridges the final data storage gap between on-premise and cloud hosting that otherwise severely limits the cloud opportunity,” said Mike Matchett, senior analyst and consultant at Taneja Group. “Whether Minio is running over VMware vSAN, HPE Nimble or a developer’s Mac laptop, it provides a consistent AWS S3 compatible object storage service.”

Minio enables developers to store unstructured data on any public or private cloud infrastructure. Now with support for multi-cloud, Minio is enabling users to build their own Amazon S3-compatible object storage on bare metal, public cloud or existing SAN/NAS storage infrastructure. With over 10M downloads since its general availability in January 2017, Minio’s cloud-native object storage server has been widely recognized within the cloud community.

“Emerging trends like AI, IoT and 5G will further accelerate the massive explosion of data taking place today,” said Anand Babu Periasamy, co-founder and CEO of Minio. “With such an influx, multi-cloud and standardization of the infrastructure stack is inevitable. We’re thrilled to be pushing the industry forward with support for multi-cloud, and welcome our newest investors as we continue to innovate and meet growing market demand.”

Minio’s object storage server is production ready, with major features including erasure code, bitrot protection, lambda compute and encryption. The recent developments brought tighter integration with popular public and private cloud environments based on Docker, Kubernetes, Cloud Foundry, DC/OS, Azure and Google Cloud Platform. Minio also provides metadata search, allowing users to achieve this functionality through Minio lambda functions, in conjunction with a database or a message queue. Minio will expand Search research and development significantly moving forward.

“Minio was quick to recognize the explosive growth of unstructured data and is delivering innovative solutions to address customer’s cloud-native object storage needs. The addition of multi-cloud support underscores Minio’s deep understanding of industry trends and facilitates customer-choice” said Gregg Adkin, Managing Director of Dell Technologies Capital. “We look forward to working with Minio not only from an investor perspective but also to help them utilize Dell Technologies’ extensive ecosystem to deliver cloud storage solutions to customers around the globe.”

Earlier this month, storage management firm, PrimaryIO has secured seed funding of $5.6 million from Accel, Exfinity Ventures and Partech Ventures, to expedite its product development efforts. In July, Bengaluru-based cloud computing platform Minjar raised pre-series A funding led by Blume Ventures.

Indian Startups Can Now Get 100% of Funds From Foreign VC Investor As Govt Includes Startups in FDI Policy

India's Commerce Ministry in its consolidated FDI policy document released today has, for the first time included startups, which can raise up to 100 per cent of funds from Foreign Venture Capital Investor (FVCI), reports TOI today.

Hereafter, startups in India can now issue equity or equity linked instruments or debt instruments to FVCI against receipt of foreign remittance, said the document which incorporates all the changes made in FDI policy over the past year.

"In addition, startups can issue convertible notes to person resident outside India (subject to certain conditions)," it said.

A person resident outside India (other than citizens/ entities of Pakistan and Bangladesh) will be permitted to purchase convertible notes issued by an Indian startup company for an amount of Rs 25 lakh or more in a single tranche.

NRIs can also acquire convertible notes on non- repatriation basis , said the document of Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), Ministry of Commerce.

"A startup company engaged in a sector where foreign investment requires Government approval may issue convertible notes to a non-resident only with approval of the Government," it said, adding that the startup issuing convertible notes would be required to furnish reports as prescribed by the RBI.

The government is focusing on startup companies to promote job creation and innovation.

The DIPP, which deals with FDI related matters, compiles all policies related to foreign investment regime into a single document to make it simple and easy for investors to understand.

Investors would otherwise have to go through various press notes issued by the department, and the RBI regulations to understand the policy. The government updates the policy every year.

The whole exercise is aimed at providing an investor friendly climate to foreign players and, in turn, attract more FDI to boost economic growth and create jobs.

During the last one year, the government has liberalised FDI policy in over a dozen sectors, including defence, civil aviation, construction and development, private security agencies and news broadcasting. In February, it was reported that government is considering 100% FDI in e-commerce marketplaces in India, however after six months the decision is still pending though after this new FDI policy announcement e-commerce startups in India are now allowed to raise 100% FVCI.

Foreign investments are considered crucial for India, which needs around USD 1 trillion for overhauling its infrastructure sector such as ports, airports and highways to boost growth.

Foreign investments will help improve the country’s balance of payments situation and strengthen the rupee value against other global currencies, especially the US dollar.

Despite Drop in Indian Startups Funding There's A Positive Sign

According to latest data made available by financial research firm VCCEdge, the Indian startup ecosystem is not only continuing its dry funding run from last year, but it has slowed down even further.

The data from VCCEdge highlights that during the first quarter of 2017, the Indian startup ecosystem saw just 237 funding deals going through all the way. This 237 figure marks a 47 per cent decline from the number of deals that were locked in last year during the same period. Further, the data also revealed that the combined deal values have also plunged by 23 per cent to $165 million in the first quarter of 2017 when compared to the same period last year, and fell by a shocking 46 per cent from the preceding quarter. VCCEdge notes that the significant fall made the quarterly deal value the lowest in the period of over three years and it fell below the $300 million mark for the very first time in nine quarters.

Marking a not so good start of the year for the third largest ecosystem in the world, the first quarter of 2017 saw a decline in seed funding and angel funding, both in terms of value as well as volume. The number of early stage deals in the Indian startup ecosystem declined almost by 50 percent with just 120 deals going through the first quarter of 2017, when compared to the 245 deals figure in the same period the preceding year. Further, Series A funding rounds also saw a decline by 65 per cent in terms of deal value, while Series B rounds saw a 22 per cent increase in value even as the number of deals fell by 16 per cent.

There's a Positive Sign

While there is no denying the fact that the figures coming in from the first quarter are quite dismissal, but everything isn't lost. According to the VCCEdge report, even though the early stage funding deal numbers weren't so impressive, but the mid to late stage deals saw an upward trend, with Series B funding rounds growing by a good 22 per cent compared to the figures clocked in last year. In addition to this, the startups that still have their eyes set on profits and are working hard to achieve their targets continue being the favourites among investors.

According to Gaurav Roy, business head, VCCEdge, “A rise in Series-B funding even as seed and Series-A funding trends show a decline reflects investor cautiousness in early and mid-stage funding and the increasing focus on market-readiness for funding. The relief however is that M&A deals have picked up momentum post-2015 coinciding with the drop in funding activity in the startup space, turning into an exit route for some promoters and a major source of funding for others. Enterprises which can work on a combination of strong revenue models and continuously updated technological knowhow which ensures a great consumer experience will continue to attract investors."

Referring to a whopping 75 per cent growth in merger and acquisition (M&A) activity in the first quarter compared to last year in terms of number of deals, experts predict that after years and years of aggressive funding, the Indian startup sector is now exhibiting early signs of maturing. Some of the top deals that made headlines were: $130 million acquisition of Citrus Payments Solutions; the $41 million purchase of One Mobikwik, and the $31 million acquisition of ZipDial Mobile Solutions; and the $16 million acquisition of Local Cube Commerce.

However, according to industry experts, this significant growth in M&A activity could lead to more investor interest as it has been observed that late stage venture capitalists often see good value in bringing players together, increasing the economies of scale of the businesses, and then eventually floating possible public offerings.

What's Still Hot

According to the VCCEDge report, Bengaluru was the most active Indian city for startup activity in Q1 2017 and clocked in 40 deals worth $96 million. It was followed by Delhi NCR at second place which saw 38 deals going through worth $44 million.

Coming to sectors within the ecosystem, investors still seem to prefer money over food and travel. According to the report, Fintech continues to be the hottest sector for the Indian startup fundraising. The sector which covers financial technology services successfully netted 11 deals worth $18.5 million in the first quarter, and was followed by food tech at second position with 8 deals worth $11.1 million, and real estate tech coming in at third position with 2 deals worth $10 million.

Despite Drop in Indian Startups Funding There's A Positive Sign

According to latest data made available by financial research firm VCCEdge, the Indian startup ecosystem is not only continuing its dry funding run from last year, but it has slowed down even further.

The data from VCCEdge highlights that during the first quarter of 2017, the Indian startup ecosystem saw just 237 funding deals going through all the way. This 237 figure marks a 47 per cent decline from the number of deals that were locked in last year during the same period. Further, the data also revealed that the combined deal values have also plunged by 23 per cent to $165 million in the first quarter of 2017 when compared to the same period last year, and fell by a shocking 46 per cent from the preceding quarter. VCCEdge notes that the significant fall made the quarterly deal value the lowest in the period of over three years and it fell below the $300 million mark for the very first time in nine quarters.

Marking a not so good start of the year for the third largest ecosystem in the world, the first quarter of 2017 saw a decline in seed funding and angel funding, both in terms of value as well as volume. The number of early stage deals in the Indian startup ecosystem declined almost by 50 percent with just 120 deals going through the first quarter of 2017, when compared to the 245 deals figure in the same period the preceding year. Further, Series A funding rounds also saw a decline by 65 per cent in terms of deal value, while Series B rounds saw a 22 per cent increase in value even as the number of deals fell by 16 per cent.

There's a Positive Sign

While there is no denying the fact that the figures coming in from the first quarter are quite dismissal, but everything isn't lost. According to the VCCEdge report, even though the early stage funding deal numbers weren't so impressive, but the mid to late stage deals saw an upward trend, with Series B funding rounds growing by a good 22 per cent compared to the figures clocked in last year. In addition to this, the startups that still have their eyes set on profits and are working hard to achieve their targets continue being the favourites among investors.

According to Gaurav Roy, business head, VCCEdge, “A rise in Series-B funding even as seed and Series-A funding trends show a decline reflects investor cautiousness in early and mid-stage funding and the increasing focus on market-readiness for funding. The relief however is that M&A deals have picked up momentum post-2015 coinciding with the drop in funding activity in the startup space, turning into an exit route for some promoters and a major source of funding for others. Enterprises which can work on a combination of strong revenue models and continuously updated technological knowhow which ensures a great consumer experience will continue to attract investors."

Referring to a whopping 75 per cent growth in merger and acquisition (M&A) activity in the first quarter compared to last year in terms of number of deals, experts predict that after years and years of aggressive funding, the Indian startup sector is now exhibiting early signs of maturing. Some of the top deals that made headlines were: $130 million acquisition of Citrus Payments Solutions; the $41 million purchase of One Mobikwik, and the $31 million acquisition of ZipDial Mobile Solutions; and the $16 million acquisition of Local Cube Commerce.

However, according to industry experts, this significant growth in M&A activity could lead to more investor interest as it has been observed that late stage venture capitalists often see good value in bringing players together, increasing the economies of scale of the businesses, and then eventually floating possible public offerings.

What's Still Hot

According to the VCCEDge report, Bengaluru was the most active Indian city for startup activity in Q1 2017 and clocked in 40 deals worth $96 million. It was followed by Delhi NCR at second place which saw 38 deals going through worth $44 million.

Coming to sectors within the ecosystem, investors still seem to prefer money over food and travel. According to the report, Fintech continues to be the hottest sector for the Indian startup fundraising. The sector which covers financial technology services successfully netted 11 deals worth $18.5 million in the first quarter, and was followed by food tech at second position with 8 deals worth $11.1 million, and real estate tech coming in at third position with 2 deals worth $10 million.

Home Services Startup Frapperz Raises $100K in Seed Funding

The $100 billion home service and improvement market has a new entrant; Frapperz, a community-powered, intuitive digital platform focused on simplifying the home set up and home management processes. In this rapidly evolving era of digital convenience, the app is built by a team of ex-corporates, IIT, JU alumni and an Imperial College of London dropout to provide optimum proficiency by using extensive data and research.

Frapperz is built on a browse-talk-book principle. It lets users browse through the offerings, catalogues, design content; get advice from experts and other users and then book the right home improvement pro or package through bidding and matching platform. Through an intuitive data driven approach, Frapperz minimizes time, effort and risk factors in every home improvement work.

In the first wave the app is launched in Kolkata. It has registered 10000+ active downloads and notched up a Gross Transaction Value of $10k per month.

The startup has raised an initial funding of $100k. The angel funding round has seen participation by multiple investors led by an Australian healthcare entrepreneur and startup investor.

Frapperz tops up the expert discovery with a fulfillment partner program which supports end to end execution of home projects. Frapperz’ fulfillment promise is backed by expert project management. The philosophy is to combine smart tech and processes to create winning consumer experiences.

Frapperz offers a seamless post-booking experience with one-click tracking, notification at every step, managed payments and post delivery reviews all integrated on a single platform. With supporting features such as project supervision support, advance-protection, service warranty and refunds, Frapperz aims to take the hassle out of creating beautiful living spaces.

Frapperz is conceived by the husband-wife duo, Jyotirmay Kanthal and Rimjhim Ray, who let go of their well-settled and comfortable lives in the UK and turned entrepreneurs with a dream. The couple has been serial entrepreneurs. In 2014 they launched Unmarketeer, a creative digital firm which has worked with leading businesses and startups to improve their digital footprint. Frapperz was launched in the late half of 2016.

The cofounder couple said, “We had stayed and set up homes in various parts of the world; London, Belfast, Switzerland, Kenya, Finland to name a few. Every place has its unique set of challenges when you are trying to set up a home and settle down. But we could generally abstract the problems to a few top learnings which we have used in Frapperz.”

Frapperz aims to provide users with a comfortable, warm way of setting up and improving a home. By connecting the key pegs that user looks for during a home improvement project – ideas, advice, designs, quality products and the right professionals, Frapperz wants users to feel upbeat about their next home project. The key mantra at Frapperz is creating a happy, engaged community with happy homes.